State: Tennessee
Years on RSYC: 2021–2024
Ayushi bridges the worlds of art and science to inspire climate action and community engagement. As a Roots & Shoots Fellow, she focuses on supporting the work of current Youth Council members and communicating the purpose and power of Roots & Shoots through a creative lens.
During her time on the Council, Ayushi developed conservACTION project, an initiative that highlights the role that the creative arts have in environmental action through environmentally-focused art exhibitions and accessible climate education resources. Some of her recent work includes a dance film focused on whale fall and deep-sea ecosystems and a visual storytelling piece reflecting on the diverse relationships with land across the American West, which was featured in the Young Contemporaries exhibition at the Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art.
Through conservACTION project, Ayushi released an illustrated collaborative recipe book, celebrating low carbon-footprint cooking rooted in familial traditions and framing sustainable eating as inclusive, joyful, and deeply connected to our local communities.
Her passion for storytelling as a tool for making change continued to grow during her internship with the National Geographic Society, where she experienced the power of narrative and visual media in community-driven conservation. Outside of Roots & Shoots, Ayushi is a university student pursuing degrees in Marine Biology and Dance, and she enjoys playing the piano and saxophone.
Whether on a stage or in the lab, Ayushi’s work is grounded in the belief that art is integral to the way we see the world and our place within it: “To create is to see the possibility of what could be and to start to bring that to life.”
